The Trump administration is certainly giving us an education in the varieties of wannabe manliness.
- There is the slovenly “I don’t care what you think” manliness of Steve Bannon.
- There’s the look-at-me-I-can-curse manliness that Anthony Scaramucci learned from “Glengarry Glen Ross.”
- There is the affirmation-hungry “I long to be the man my father was” parody of manliness performed by Donald Trump.
- There are all those authentically manly Marine generals Trump hires to supplement his own.
- There’s Trump’s man-crush on Vladimir Putin and the firing of insufficiently manly Reince Priebus.
With this crowd, it’s man-craving all the way down.
.. example, 2,400 years ago the Greeks had a more fully developed vision of manliness than anything we see in or around the White House today.
.. For them, real men defended or served their city, or performed some noble public service. Braying after money was the opposite of manliness. For the Greeks, that was just avariciousness, an activity that shrunk you down into a people-pleasing marketer or hollowed you out because you pursued hollow things.
The Greeks admired what you might call spiritedness. The spirited man defies death in battle, performs deeds of honor and is respected by those whose esteem is worth having.
.. The classical Greek concept of manliness emphasizes certain traits. The bedrock virtue is courage. The manly man puts himself on the line and risks death and criticism. The manly man is assertive. He does not hang back but instead wades into any fray. The manly man is competitive. He looks for ways to compete with others, to demonstrate his prowess and to be the best. The manly man is self-confident. He knows his own worth. But he is also touchy. He is outraged if others do not grant him the honor that is his due.
.. That version of manliness gave Greece its dynamism. But the Greeks came to understand the problem with manly men. They are hard to live with. They are constantly picking fights and engaging in peacock displays.
.. So the Greeks took manliness to the next level. On top of the honor code, they gave us the concept of magnanimity. Pericles is the perfect magnanimous man (and in America, George Washington and George Marshall were his heirs). The magnanimous leader possesses all the spirited traits described above, but he uses his traits not just to puff himself up, but to create a just political order... The magnanimous man has a certain style. He is a bit aloof, marked more by gravitas than familiarity. He shows perfect self-control because he has mastered his passions. He does not show his vulnerability. His relationships are not reciprocal. He is eager to grant favors but is ashamed of receiving them... The magnanimous man believes that politics practiced well is the noblest of all professions. No other arena requires as much wisdom, tenacity, foresight and empathy. No other field places such stress on conversation and persuasion. The English word “idiot” comes from the ancient Greek word for the person who is uninterested in politics but capable only of running his or her own private affairs... Today, we’re in a crisis of masculinity. Some men are unable to compete in schools and in labor markets because the stereotype of what is considered “man’s work” is so narrow. In the White House, we have phony manliness run amok... Of all the politicians I’ve covered, John McCain comes closest to the old magnanimous ideal. Last week, when he went to the Senate and flipped his thumb down on the pretzeled-up health care bill, we saw one version of manliness trumping another. When John Kelly elbowed out Anthony Scaramucci, one version of manliness replaced another.The old virtues aren’t totally lost. So there’s hope.
John Kelly cannot make Trump effective
First, this administration has zero legislative accomplishments and seems unable to negotiate with members of its own party. Kelly, who has been openly scornful of Congress, is unlikely to help in that regard.
.. (“If lawmakers do not like the laws they’ve passed and we are charged to enforce, then they should have the courage and skill to change the laws,’’ he said about congressional critics of immigration enforcement. “Otherwise they should shut up and support the men and women on the front lines.’’)
.. as the administration faces deadlines for the debt ceiling and the budget. Ironically, Trump needs help to close deals, and Kelly doesn’t have those skills.
.. Second, the president refuses to learn in office or master any level of detail. He therefore is far less influential in pressing lawmakers to pass his initiatives. Without understanding individual lawmakers’ objections, his ability to persuade and cajole them is limited to repeating empty talking points. The same problem that afflicted him in the health-care debate will be evident no matter what the topic.
.. it seems no one — not even Trump’s relatives and lawyers — can prevent him from digging himself a deeper hole.
.. Fourth, Kelly is more likely to accentuate Trump’s alienation from Republicans. Already strained because of health reform, the president’s serial outbursts and the Russia scandal, the relationship between Congress and Trump seems more like that between a president and the majority of the other party. In point of fact, Trump’s never really been a Republican
.. Kelly has no particular ideological leanings, no ties to the conservative movement and no experience in domestic policy. That leaves Trump even less tethered to his party than he was at the onset of his term.
.. Fifth, Trump refuses to be disciplined. He rejects the overwhelming sentiment among voters that Twitter is a dangerous distraction. Trump doesn’t agree. He tweeted againTuesday: “Only the Fake News Media and Trump enemies want me to stop using Social Media (110 million people). Only way for me to get the truth out!” Without a disciplined boss, the administration and Congress will be tied up in whatever controversy of the day Trump creates. Trump remains the obstacle that’s impossible to overcome. As long as he is there, effective leadership will be a fantasy.
Why Priebus was destined to fail
The former RNC chairman was the low-key leader Trump thought he needed, but quickly viewed as too weak to serve him.
Bill Clinton chose his boyhood friend Thomas “Mack” McLarty, a pliable figurehead, because he wanted to function as his own chief of staff. Richard Nixon chose the crew-cut enforcer H.R. Haldeman to instill fear and deliver the bad news that Nixon himself often shrank from imparting.
.. In Priebus, Trump first tried the kind of low-key, steady hand that what’s left of the GOP establishment thought he needed as a novice politician.
Surely the longest-serving national chairman in the Republican Party’s history, who had held the Republican Party together through fractious years and helped it reclaim the presidency, could be a calming, rational manager in the White House.
.. Priebus had repeatedly beseeched Trump to modulate his message and play well with the other candidates in the crowded Republican field. Trump, who has always been his own chief strategist, communications guru and political director – and who was winning by running his way — saw that as a sign of weakness, and responded accordingly.
.. In retired Marine Corps General John Kelly, Trump has now turned to the kind of military strong man he thinks he wants, one he hopes will kick keisters and take names. But the president might want to be careful what he wishes for. There is a model for that kind of chief of staff, and it’s probably not one that Trump would be comfortable with.
.. “Wouldn’t it be awful if Sherman Adams died and Eisenhower became president?” There will never be any doubt about who’s the real boss in the Trump White House.
.. Each day brings fresh evidence that the most unpredictable, undisciplined figure in this administration is the president himself. The very manner of Kelly’s surprise appointment – announced without warning in a presidential tweet – might give any new chief of staff pause.
.. But if he is to be an effective quarterback, his president has to give him the ball. It seems far from clear that Donald Trump is willing to share the football with anyone. Will Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump report to the president, or to Kelly? Scaramucci has already said he answers directly to Trump. What does that portend for Kelly’s authority before he even takes the job?
.. But when Ford left office, his powerful chief of staff, Dick Cheney, got a going- away present from his own aides: A bicycle wheel mounted on a piece of plywood with every spoke between the hub and the rim broken – except one.
.. Donald Trump’s rise, if not his presidency, represents everything that Reince Priebus had argued against in the wake of his party’s 2012 electoral defeat, when he commissioned an autopsy for the Republican National Committee that concluded the party had to attract younger, more diverse swing voters if it were ever again to be competitive in presidential elections
Kelly’s first task: Stabilize the West Wing
Privately, White House aides and others close to the administration acknowledged it won’t be easy. Even without Priebus, the West Wing remains fractured, with advisers competing for influence over the president.
“I think this is the best and last shot,” said one person close to Kelly. “This is it.”
.. Kelly is expected to nonetheless try to exert his authority early, including by limiting access to the Oval Office, according to people briefed on his plans. Kelly wants to have more of a pecking order among the staff and a more “traditional” approach, one White House official said.
But others in the White House said it’s too early to make predictions. “Everything is up in the air. Anyone who tells you they know anything is lying,” a White House official said.
.. But there is nonetheless concern at the White House about Kelly’s lack of experience with Congress.
“He doesn’t have the relationships over there,” one aide said.
Kelly has built relationships with several top White House aides in recent months, including chief strategist Steve Bannon and senior adviser Stephen Miller, who have played a central role in Trump’s immigration crackdown.
.. One of the people close to Kelly said he likely won’t have much in common with communications director Anthony Scaramucci, the fast-talking former New York financier.
Asked to name any similarities between the two men, the person said, “They’re both Catholic, but that’s probably about it.”
.. Kelly is expected to make his first staff change at the White House on Monday, when he’ll bring in Kirstjen Nielsen, his chief of staff at DHS.
.. previous stints as the senior military assistant to former defense secretaries Robert Gates and Leon Panetta as highly relevant experience — a role one described as a “mini gatekeeper.”
.. “He has little tolerance for chaos and people who don’t follow orders.”
.. Kelly will also have to be able to take on the president — something few administration officials are expected to do as much as the White House chief of staff.
“He will have to be willing to look the president in the eye and tell him when he is wrong,” Panetta said on Saturday. “He can’t just be a yes man.”
“Whether John can succeed depends on whether President Trump can change.”
.. “A friend said to me recently, ‘John’s morals will be under assault from the moment he enters the role.’
.. earlier in his Marine Corps career Kelly was a congressional liaison and in his last military post — as head of the U.S. Southern Command — he had to regularly deal with political, diplomatic and economic leaders in Latin America.
“But can he succeed where Priebus failed?” he asked. “Trump likes to be his own chief of staff.”